What’s very funny is that the interview is a few weeks old. I had no idea he was going to post it right after I wrote Dear Author. About 11 minutes in, I talk about the boring trap, the passive voice trap in my own writing. I think this is pretty funny.

Decide on One Idea

I am the prime example of this one, so I will use an example from my writing. I was trying to write one of my Pragmatic Manager emails last week. I sent it to Esther. It was only about 200 words. She counted the number of ideas, in the opening story of fewer than 60 words and stopped at 9 ideas. She could not read anymore.

“JR, what is the main idea of this piece?”

I just about fell out of my chair laughing at myself.

I read this in articles and chapters all the time. You need one main idea in an article or a chapter. When you are done with that idea, it’s time for another article or a chapter.

If you have lots of ideas, it’s fine to have another article or a chapter. When I write books, I have a file called, “Stuff-to-put-somewhere”. It’s ideas I can’t use now, but might have a chance to use later. Maybe you don’t need a file like that, but you need a place to put stuff you are not going to use now.

You do not need to put everything you know into this article or this book. Really. I promise you.

BTW, Joyce Statz was the first one to give me this advice on my very first paper in 1995. Joyce, I am still learning. Esther gave me this advice last week. BTW, when I see this with authors, I ask them questions, as Esther did with me to help them see which ideas they want to address, or how they want to rewrite the piece.

Boring Writing Stays Boring Until You Change Something

Unless I know you well I don’t tell you your writing is boring. I may tell you that you need a story. Or, I might tell you the writing is dry. Or, that you need a story. Or that I need an example. But, a story with people yelling at each other or working through a project is a great idea.

If I tell you need a story, believe, me. You need a story or an example. I don’t tell you that because I want to hurt your feelings. I’m telling you because I fell asleep reading your work. At 8am. After I woke up and worked out. Or, took a shower. I gave your writing the best shot I knew how. It put me to sleep.

If I tell you your writing is boring, you have several choices:

1. You can insert a story;
2. You can take a different perspective on the entire article;
3. Put the piece down for a week or two and come back to it later.

When Esther and I wrote Behind Closed Doors, Jerry gave us feedback on our first draft and told us it was boring. We rewrote the entire book. He told us our second draft was more boring! Esther is the one who had the transforming idea that we should write the story of Sam the perfect manager and pull out the lessons after we told the story, and that we should pair-write the book.

Do not write more words. Please. Unless you change something. If you write more words in a piece that’s already boring, it will become more boring. If you take words out, it might become less boring. Maybe. No guarantees.

90% Done Is Not Close

You are convinced you are within a few hours of finishing the piece. This is just like a software project. You are not. You are days or weeks or months away from finishing that piece in this form.

Writing in a natural language is not so different from writing code. When authors tell me they can’t take the time to put in a story because they are “almost done,” I know the piece is going to stink. I know I am going to iterate forever trying to get a great piece of writing from the author.

Throw it out and start over. It will be faster.

Sunk Cost Grabs You Every Time

When I suggest to an author that he or she try another approach, or read the piece out loud or redo a picture in a new tool or even write in a new tool, and the author rejects my advice because “I’m almost done and it’s so close,” I know the author is thinking of the sunk cost in the project already. I see this with books more often than with articles.

I want to shake the author. “Author,” I want to say, “Do you want a great article? Or do you want a crappy article? Because what you have right now stinks. Do you think I am suggesting this to you because I want to make you crazy? No. I am suggesting this to you because what you have right now is not worth publishing. I am going to go around this article with you 1700 more times and we will still be working on this graphic from now until doomsday.” I don’t say that. What I have said is, “PowerPoint is not a good tool for graphics.”

Too many authors get stuck in their thinking because of their tools. Do not write a book in Word. Do not develop graphics in PowerPoint. Those tools will constrain your thinking for the book and the graphics. If you think of them as tools for an initial rough draft of two or three pages or two or three drawings, that’s fine. But they get in the way for really writing.

For those of you who are writing books, I suggest either TextMate with leanpub or Scrivener. I much prefer TextMate with leanpub. You will need to rearchitect your book at least 6-7 times. That is, you will need to take large chunks of words and move them from here to there. If you don’t, your book will become more boring. You want to keep each chapter in a separate file. Word does not work that well for books. Oh, like any other tool, you can make it work.

(Yes, yes, I know some of you have succeeded using Word to write your books. Fine. You are the exceptions who prove the rule. If you want me to review your book, use leanpub.)

Passive Voice Stops Your Writing Dead

When I read passive voice, I question it. Not because I am a copyeditor. But because I can’t tell who is talking. Who is doing the work? Who is talking?

Search for passive voice and excise it. I just discovered a passive voice bundle for TextMate and installed it. I am one happy woman.

Noun-Verb Phrases are For the Birds

Noun verbs or noun-verb phrases are two-word verbs or phrases such as: “set up” instead of arrange, “get rid of” instead of eliminate. They weaken your writing and make me wonder what the heck you mean.

If you are wondering what “for the birds” means, it’s an idiom that means useless. That’s what those noun-verb phrase idioms are. Useless.

Use them for your first drafts. Then find them and replace them with strong verbs. Think of them like adverbs.

Excise Adverbs

If I see the word “basically” one more time, I might have to vomit. Or actually. Or, firstly. Firstly? Come on. Make a numbered list if you must.

It’s okay to write the adverbs when you write. In your first editing pass, remove all the adverbs. See how much stronger your writing is? Love it.

You might think, “Oh, did I say that? Wow, that’s really strong.” See what happens when you eliminate the adverb? You become powerful. Your writing becomes powerful. You tower over the world. You, too, become seven feet tall. I recommend it. Honestly. (Yes, that was a punny adverb. Are you paying attention? :-) Why do you think people are so surprised when they meet me in person? I have everyone convinced I am seven feet tall. Including me.

You are writing an Article or Book of lists instead of prose.

I like to read. Reading to me means I will read paragraphs of prose for a few pages. I like stories to interrupt my prose. Maybe a picture or two. I like sidebars, tips, and warnings to interrupt my prose. Those interruptions are fine.

A list is good, if and only if it pulls ideas together.

I do not like books of lists. I do not like articles of lists. When I attempt to read them, I wonder, “Did this author try to turn the slides into this book or article? I bet this was slide 32 and this was slide 33.”

If you have slides and want to turn them into a book, you are better off talking them first, and transcribing the talk. Make the slides a conversation with the reader.

I can read your two-by-two matrix. I have mine, you can have yours. I can read your lists, I certainly have mine. But don’t make me read an entire article of lists. I need prose to knit it together.

Larry Constantine gave me the best advice years ago when he asked me to write an article for the last page of Software Development magazine. “No lists, Johanna. One article of all prose.” Oh my goodness. I don’t think I had ever done that before. Well, I did. It’s a great article.

Larry is writing some terrific fiction these days, under the pen name Lior Samson. Read it. That’s an order.

Writers Make Mistakes, That’s Why We Have Editors

I make these mistakes, too. Do you think I’m perfect? Oh no. Not by a long shot. I make all these mistakes. That’s why I recognize them so well in other people’s writing.

If you want to be a better writer, read Jerry’s writing book, Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method. I have the paper version. Start here with links to the electronic versions. I also like Stephen King’s On Writing. I read the 2000 version.

Want to Write for the Agile Journal?

After all this, if you want to write for the Agile Journal, you know what you will get. I will challenge you to be the best writer you can. I will challenge me to be the best editor for you. Together, we will partner to create a great online experience for our readers.

I won’t copyedit you. Unless I can’t stand it. If you adverb me to death, I might say something. If you passive voice me, I might say something, because I will be confused. I might be a pain in your tush. But you will exit the experience with an article you can be proud of. And a new friend. Me.

And, if you are wondering how long it took me to write this, I don’t know. But I started writing it a few days ago, and WordPress tells me it went through 8 revisions. I’m sure there area mistakes even though I have self-edited.

January: Requirements; Agile Game Development

February: Low Tech Test Tools

March: Mobile, Redefining Quality

April: Acceptance Test Driven Development

May: What is Quality?

June: Agile Management

July: Cloud Development

August: Business Value

September: Agile Testing

October: Kanban

November: Salary Survey; Embedded Systems

When I say editorial calendar as a guideline, I mean just that. If you have an article that is jumping out of you, and it doesn’t fit the guideline for a given month, please send the article to me.  Do not worry!

Here’s how I work with authors: I read your article. I try not to make any copyedits. I do make some edits if I think they affect your meaning. I ask you questions in comments to  make sure I understand your meaning. My job is to make sure you make sense and that you look smart and consistent to your readers. I want everyone to think, “Wow, this author has something really interesting to say.”

Sometimes, authors have peanut butter thinking. That is, they get their thoughts all stuck together. (I do this, which is why I recognize it.) I can help you unstick your thoughts. Sometimes, authors have their best sentence at the end. (I do this.) I can suggest it go at the beginning. Sometimes, authors need an example. (I do this.) I suggest you need an example. You don’t have to take my suggestions. I try to have a light touch.

My goal, which I think is your goal, is to help you get published.

PR people:  Once you send in the article, your work is done. I work with the author, not with you. And no, I don’t talk with you on the phone. I edit, which is writing, not talking. I know, that’s so different from what you do. Thank you for understanding.

So, what do you say? Want to write an article for the Agile Journal? I’ll get some of my previous authors to say how nice it was working with me, even when I pushed them hard to make their articles different from what they originally thought. The results were great.

If you would like to write for Agile Journal, and maintain the high level of content that Russell and Patrick Egan started, I am interested in talking to you. The editorial calendar for the rest of this year is:

Sept: Agile Release Management (maybe room for one article)
Oct:  Agile Methodologies
Nov: Implementing Agile Across the Organization
Dec: Editor’s Choice (that would be me!)

The first draft for a given issue is roughly a month in advance of that issue. If you’re interested in writing for the Agile Journal, send me an email and let me know what you’d like to write about. I’ll send you the template for submissions.

Daniel and Johanna meet in person

As you can tell from my wide smile, I was pretty psyched.

Hey Daniel, lunch and visiting was great.

And for those of you waiting for Manage Your Project Portfolio, any day now…

For me, the challenge in writing a book is to write it all down. I need to make sure I show why and how, and not forget the things I do that are so obvious to me but may not be to my reader. Once the book is ready for review, my initial editing challenge is to find ways to show the problems and solutions. But where I am now–close to final editing–my challenge is to not write any more words. Yes, I may have to write more words somewhere, but I have to manage the overall word count, or the book will not fit for its intended audience.

Jerry, in his writing workshops, and in Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method, taught me to cut by a third: cut a third of the words in a sentence, a third of the words in a paragraph, a third of the paragraphs, a third of the pages. I haven’t had to cut a third of the chapters–yet :-)

At the beginning of writing any piece, I allow and encourage expansion. Starting in the middle, after some initial review and towards the end, I work at trimming. (Sort of like life, right?) This looks a lot the way I used to write code too. I’m still writing when I edit, but my mindset is a little different.

For those of you who want to know when the book will be done: it depends on how much editing I finish this week, which also depends on when the hot water heater is fixed. Let’s hope the plumbers get here soon. Life is a little too challenging with no heat or hot water. I may have that story later this week.

If you wanted to know the meaining of a word, would you prefer to see it as part of a glossary, or as part of an index? The index is easy. The glossary is not hard to include, either, it’s just a little more work. I want to do what my readers want to read. Please comment. Thank you.

Collaborating with other writers for natural language writing is difficult. I find pairing for code much easier, and even for code, I have trouble. No one can read my mind, I want to name variables something else. I want a different setup. There’s always something.

If you find some good collaborators, treasure your relationship with them.

Of course, that makes sense. I write those pieces. Sometimes they stay in the chapter in which I originally thought they went, sometimes they have to move. Sometimes they go to the chapter that’s called “stuff to put somewhere.” (Which might be nowhere for this book.)

I’m not good about outlining. I am good at seeing a bunch of related ideas and sometimes I’m good at weaving them together. But I don’t always see the organizing theme (which is where Daniel, my editor, is a huge help). Without the organizing theme, I don’t always have the backlog in the right place. But I do like thinking about those bullets at the beginning of the chapter as a backlog.

Having a chapter backlog is a useful metaphor for me, because it helps me keep my eye on the theme (iteration goal), and not try to do more than that for a particular chapter.

Now, if I can just remember who said this to me today :-)